On November 3rd, Li Bin, founder, chairman, and CEO of NIO Automotive, issued a full staff letter stating that in order to further improve execution efficiency and ensure sufficient resource investment in key businesses, the company will reduce the number of positions by about 10%. The specific adjustments will be completed in November.
The open letter also mentioned that NIO will merge departments and positions that have been repeatedly constructed, transform inefficient internal workflow and division of labor, and eliminate inefficient positions; Delaying and reducing project investments that cannot improve the company's financial performance within 3 years.
Previously, it was rumored that NIO Motors would start layoffs, with department ratios ranging from 10 to 20%, involving multiple departments and positions.
However, some departments of NIO are still recruiting, and there is still recruitment information for autonomous driving R&D engineers on third-party recruitment platforms. According to the interface news, engineers from companies such as Huawei have received calls from NIO headhunters.
According to the financial report, as of the end of last year, NIO Automobile had a total of 26800 employees, with the highest number of employees among the three brands of "NIO Xiaoli". Compared to Xiaopeng and Ideal, NIO has a larger proportion of R&D, marketing, and sales employees, with nearly 12000 employees in its user experience department, accounting for 44.8% of the total.
It is worth noting that in his speech in November last year, Li Bin also stated that he did not intend to lay off employees, but rather hoped to improve systematic efficiency. He bluntly said, "As long as you can provide a salary, you can easily avoid layoffs and use 100% of your employees to complete 150% of the work
However, since the beginning of this year, NIO has started relevant adjustments, and there have been frequent rumors of layoffs within the company.
Li Bin requested to improve employee efficiency and optimize inefficient projects and teams in an internal letter released on January 1st. Interface News learned from insiders that after the year-end bonus was issued in April this year, NIO had a slight layoff, with nearly 300 employees voluntarily and passively resigning from its digital development platform.
The financial report shows that the company's sales and administrative expenses in the second quarter reached 2.857 billion yuan, far exceeding the ideal and Xiaopeng in the same period. Its research and development expenses are also quite high, with a quarterly expenditure of 3.345 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 55.6%.
The high expenses directly lowered NIO's gross profit margin. In fact, the overall gross profit margin of the brand has been declining, with only 1% in the second quarter. During the period, the company's gross profit was only 87 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 93.5%.
Entering 2023, NIO's performance was not ideal. After a significant 33.54% month on month decline in revenue in the first quarter, NIO delivered its worst performance in recent years in the second quarter, with a revenue of only 8.77 billion yuan.
The poor operating conditions prompted NIO to make further adjustments. At the end of August, Li Bin stated at the second quarter financial report communication meeting that he would focus on improving sales capabilities, mainly due to the inability to meet the demand for simultaneous sales of 7 to 8 cars in previous operations.
Li Bin stated that his sales capacity has been comprehensively improved since July, with the goal of achieving a monthly lock order of 30000 vehicles. According to the plan, this construction will be completed by the end of September, and the results will gradually become apparent in October. He emphasized that he hopes more experienced sales personnel can join.
From the latest delivery situation, the effectiveness of the reform on the sales side is weak. In October of this year, NIO delivered 16100 new cars, a slight increase of 2.8% compared to the previous month. During the same period, Ideal had already surpassed 40000 cars, and Xiaopeng had also surpassed 20000 cars for the first time.
Li Bin admitted in the letter that NIO has gained over 40% of the market share in the pure electricity market with a transaction price of over 300000 yuan, but its overall performance still falls short of the expected target. To win the qualification to participate in the finals, it is necessary to further improve execution efficiency and ensure that key businesses have sufficient resources invested.